Search Engine Roundtable reported on 30 July 2026 that new Similarweb data puts AI Overviews on about 43% of all Google queries, while Semrush data puts the share at about 48%. Barry Schwartz published both figures the same day, and the framing matters as much as the numbers: Google released neither one. Both come from third-party SERP-tracking vendors.
For anyone planning a search budget, the reported range says that on roughly four to five of every ten Google searches, a generated answer now sits above the classic list of links. The two vendors disagree by five points, which is itself worth understanding before the figure gets quoted in a deck.
Two vendors, two numbers
Search Engine Roundtable reported on 30 July 2026 that Similarweb measured AI Overviews on about 43% of all Google queries and that Semrush measured about 48% of all queries. Two trackers watching the same surface landed five points apart. No methodology, sample size, date range or query count was published alongside either figure in that report, so the gap cannot be resolved from what is on the record. The honest reading is a range, not a single number.
The share depends on what people are asking
Schwartz noted in the same 30 July 2026 post that the share of queries carrying an AI Overview depends on the query category, and that informational queries tend to run higher than the overall figure. That is the line most likely to matter to a specific site. A page built to answer a question sits in the category that runs above average, whatever the average turns out to be. Per-category percentages were not published, so the direction is on the record and the size of the difference is not.
From about 15% to about 43%
A Similarweb chart posted on X, cited by Search Engine Roundtable on 30 July 2026, shows the AI Overview share climbing from about 15% to about 43% over a short period. Schwartz added a longer baseline from his own archive: he covered these same percentages a year ago, when the figure sat at about 13% to 20%. Whichever vendor is closer to the truth today, the reported trend runs in one direction.
AI Mode is climbing faster than AI Overview coverage
The same Similarweb chart shows AI Mode visits growing even faster than AI Overview coverage, Search Engine Roundtable reported on 30 July 2026. No absolute visit numbers for AI Mode were given in that report, only the relative shape of the two curves. Coverage of AI Overviews measures how often the feature appears; AI Mode visits measure people choosing to go there. They are different things, and on this chart the second is moving quicker.
These are vendor measurements, not a Google disclosure
Google published none of these percentages. Similarweb and Semrush each track Google independently and sell that data, and Search Engine Roundtable reported their results on 30 July 2026. This is worth stating plainly, because AI Overview coverage numbers get repeated in strategy documents as though Google confirmed them. Nobody at Google did. The five-point spread between the two vendors is the visible evidence that these are estimates produced by different instruments.
Every reported figure in one place
The table below collects each number in the 30 July 2026 Search Engine Roundtable report, with the party that measured it.
| What was measured | Reported figure | Who measured it |
|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews as a share of all Google queries | About 43% | Similarweb |
| AI Overviews as a share of all Google queries | About 48% | Semrush |
| Starting point of the charted rise | About 15% | Similarweb chart posted on X |
| The same percentages a year earlier | About 13% to 20% | Search Engine Roundtable's earlier coverage |
| Informational queries versus the overall rate | Higher, no figure given | Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable |
| AI Mode visits versus AI Overview coverage | Growing faster, no figure given | Similarweb chart posted on X |
What this means for Thai marketers
No country or language breakdown was reported, so there is no Thailand figure in this data and no honest way to produce one from it. Thai-language results and English results are separate SERPs with separate coverage, and neither vendor was reported as splitting them out. Anyone quoting 43% or 48% as a Thai number is inventing it.
What survives the caveat is directional. If AI answers are appearing on a large and rising share of queries somewhere, the sensible local move is to measure your own queries rather than borrow a global average. Pull the terms that actually bring revenue, search them in Thai and in English, and record which ones return a generated answer and whether anything of yours is inside it. That measurement is the input to any serious generative engine optimisation plan, and it is cheap to run. The follow-on question, how content earns a place in those answers, is the work covered by AI SEO, and none of it replaces the organic search foundations that generated answers are still drawing from.
Frequently asked questions
Did Google confirm that AI Overviews appear on 43% of queries?
No. Google published neither the 43% nor the 48% figure. Search Engine Roundtable reported both on 30 July 2026 as third-party measurements, one from Similarweb and one from Semrush.
Which number is correct, 43% or 48%?
The report does not resolve it. Both figures stand as separate vendor estimates of the same thing, published without the methodology that would let a reader judge between them, so quoting the range is more accurate than picking a side.
Does this apply to Thailand?
The source does not say. No country or language breakdown was included in the reported data, so there is no Thai figure here, and treating the global number as a local one would be a guess.
Do I need to change anything right now?
Nothing in this report requires an immediate change. It is a coverage measurement, not an algorithm update or a policy change. The useful response is to check your own priority queries for generated answers and track that over time rather than react to a single reported percentage.
If you want to know how often your own money queries return an AI answer in Thailand, and whether your pages are cited in them, our team can run that check and show you the list. Get in touch and we will start with the queries that matter to your revenue.
